Chapter 4
A Lively Gathering
It was only when she opened the door to the diner that Serenity realized she was lacking basic information to figure out who she was meeting. There had been no descriptions of people or what they were wearing. Looking around, she had no idea which one of the several groups was the one she was supposed to be meeting. She stood there looking around, wondering if she should text Cora.
“You must be our newest member.” A woman with platinum blonde hair in a very cute pixie cut walked up to her. “Hi! I’m Cora.”
Serenity took her outstretched hand. “Serenity. Thanks for setting this up on such short notice. I feel guilty.”
Cora laughed, her musical voice echoing around them. Serenity noticed that several people turned to look at her, mostly men, and Serenity recognized the look they were giving Cora. If she had to guess, at least half of the men in the diner were in love with the girl. A sincere smile spread across her face. Suddenly Serenity felt very comfortable with the beautiful woman in front of her. Finally, she would not be attracting a lot of attention because there was someone else far more desirable than her. Unlike Serenity, Cora did not seem to realize just how pretty she was. At about five foot one inch tall, Cora was a small package with a lot of energy. Exactly the kind of thing that would make a guy want to protect her. Right?
“Wow, look at you!” Cora had stepped back and was looking Serenity up and down. “So tall and thin. I bet people ask you if you are a model all the time. So jealous!”
Serenity shook her head, “I don’t think you have anything to be jealous about. Anyway, I’m looking forward to the trip. I’ve never been whitewater rafting.”
“What, really? So Alaric just threw you into this with no experience.” She had a concerned look on her face. “We aren’t doing one of the trips that are great for beginners.”
“Is that a problem? Should I wait until next time?”
Cora twisted her lips to the side, “Maybe we should change the plans and do something a little easier.”
“Oh no, I don’t want you guys changing everything for me. You don’t even–”
“Cora, are you hogging the newest member of our group? Woah!” A tall man appeared behind her and was looking at Serenity in the way that she was accustomed to men reacting to her. For the first time in a long time she didn’t mind. His floppy, dark brown hair framed a young face in a way that reminded her of a puppy. If she had to guess, he couldn’t have been older than 20 years old. Then he took her hand, lifted it up to his mouth and kissed it. “I’m Silas.” He looked at her, his face tilted slightly down.
Serenity gave him a sincere smile. “Serenity.”
“Now that is a beautiful name. I bet you are nothing like our little Cora here. Oooph!” He leaned forward, dropping Serenity’s hand.
“Stop it, Silas, you are going to scare her away. Come on.” The last sentence was directed at Serenity. “We are over here. You need to meet everyone else.”
“So I am the last one here?” She felt a little guilty.
“Don’t worry about it,” Silas appeared beside her. “Cora said you were out of range. So where do you live that you don’t get good reception? Out toward the old mill? Or are you close to the river?”
“Oh, no, I get good reception at home.” She was looking at Silas as they reached the table. He pulled her chair out, and she couldn’t help but blush. “That isn’t necessary.”
“I want to.” His smile was dazzling, exposing just a little bit of his teeth between perfectly pink lips. His hair swayed near his gorgeous hazel eyes, and she couldn’t help the passing thought that he was incredibly good-looking in addition to being friendly.
Serenity smiled and sat down. It had been a long time since she had allowed anyone to do that, so it was a little awkward as he pushed the chair in while she was in it. He dropped down in the seat next to her. “So,” he put his elbow on the table and kept her attention, “where were you that you didn’t have much signal?”
Serenity opened her mouth to answer when a man’s voice cut in, “She was with me up at Willowdown Peak.”
The smile on Serenity’s face slid away as she recognized one of the members of the group. Turning her head, she looked at the man who had twice interrupted her walk on the trail near her home.
Beside her Silas became agitated. “What did you do? Ditch her to get here first?”
“No. She ditched me when Cora called. I didn’t know she was coming here because she never said a word about it.”
Serenity simply looked at him, her mind racing with all kinds of responses to what he was saying. The first thing she wanted to do was to let everyone there know that she had not been with him on purpose.
Silas put a hand over hers, startling Serenity. “Don’t worry, Serenity. I’ll take care of you now. You can forget about that jerk.”
Serenity turned and smiled at Silas, “Don't worry about it. I really don't know anything about him.”
Silas pursed his lips, then started to smile. “Well, if you are willing to hang out with someone you don’t know, that means we can start hanging out as soon as this is over.”
Serenity laughed a little. “Actually, I am already far more familiar with you than him.” She tilted her head to the side to indicate the guy sitting on the other side of the table.
Cora finally cut in, “Well, I’m not sure if you are simply humoring this guy,” she gave the back of Silas’s head a light slap, “but I think we need to do introductions with everyone else.”
Silas let go of Serenity’s hand and rubbed his hand on the back of his head. “Fine. We’ll continue this later.” He winked at Serenity.
Cora stood behind the woman on the other side of Silas, and travelled around the table as she introduced each of the members. “That’s Josie. She was one of the first people to join. If you need to know where to go to get supplies, start with her – she’s our resident expert. Beside her are Jackie and Jake. They aren’t going to be joining us this time, but I wanted to have them here so you could meet them. Next is Phillip. He does a lot of recon for us. The twins are Trenton and Jacqueline, our skiing experts. They’ll be joining us for this one, though. And you already know Ryland.”
Serenity looked at the man who didn’t look like he was about to say anything else. “Actually, no. We’ve only met up twice at the viewpoint he mentioned. He’s never even told me his name.”
“Ryland!” Cora gave him a slap on the arm as she sat down on Serenity’s other side. “You still being antisocial?”
“Not at all. I spoke to her first both times.”
“What? Really?” Cora look shocked and turned to get confirmation from Serenity.
“Yes, technically that is true. But he didn’t seem interested in continuing the discussion once he initiated it.”
“That sounds more like him,” Silas muttered on her other side. “Thought it sounded suspicious when he said they were hanging out before he got here.”
“Still, he talked to someone without being prompted. Then again, given who he talked to, guess it isn’t too surprising.”
“Hey!” Ryland didn’t seem too pleased with the implications. “I only responded to her talking to herself. The first time I didn’t even realize that she was talking to herself, and I didn’t want to be rude.”
Serenity gave him a look of shock that he would bring that up after warning her not to do it anymore.
“You talk to yourself, too, huh?” Silas rested on his hand again. “If you need someone to listen, I am willing to always be there.”
Serenity frowned, “Who else talks to themselves?”
Almost everyone at the table answered, “Alaric.”
Looking around, Serenity asked, “The professor talks to himself?”
“All the time,” Ryland answered from his relaxed position.
Cora laughed, “Yeah, I think that most of his students would be a little less interested in him if they knew.”
“I don’t see anything wrong with it,” Serenity said, feeling like she should stick up for the man who was responsible for her being there.
“Of course you would. You do it yourself,” Ryland said, his eyebrow arched and a slight smile on his lips.
“Oh, honey,” Cora put a hand on Serenity, “I hope you aren’t hoping to get his attention. That guy is the highest maintenance man I’ve ever known. Even more difficult than Silas there.”
Without thinking, Serenity asked, “Even more difficult than Ryland?”
He chuckled as Cora looked surprised. “You think Ryland is high maintenance? Oh, dear God, no wonder you fell for Alaric. I bet you come from a small town with incredibly friendly men.”
“Actually, no. I grew up on the east coast near D.C.”
There were some gasps from several of the people at the table. Silas became agitated. “You’re from the east coast? I have always wanted to go and check it out. I want to hear all about it.”
“Silas,” Jaqueline cut in, “you can hit on her later. Right now we are supposed to be planning.”
Serenity had been watching Ryland out of the corner of her eye, waiting for him to mention that she had actually spent time in New England, but he didn’t show any indication of wanting to add to the conversation.
“Jaqueline’s right. Our Serenity here hasn’t been whitewater rafting before, so I think that we may need to change our plans a bit.”
“No, please don’t, not on my account. You guys have been planning this for a while–”
“Less than a week, actually,” Cora interrupted her.
“Oh, well still. I don’t want you guys to have to change your plans. I can always wait for the next time.”
“No!” Silas was quite adamant. “I don’t think that will be necessary. I’ll take care of you.”
Serenity tried to graciously decline when Ryland cut in, “I really don’t think that is a good idea.”
“Why not?” Josie asked. “I think that we’ve done enough planning that changing it up will be too much of a pain.”
“I agree,” Jackie chimed in. “We’ve already made a payment. Besides, there are enough of us here that I think we can take care of any possible issues.”
Trenton added, “It should be easy enough to keep her secured. Just don’t put her in the front or the back, and she should be fine.”
Ryland looked around. It looked like he wanted to say something, but he knew that he was outnumbered. Serenity watched as he shrugged his shoulders and resigned himself to accepting the decision of the rest of the group. Not entirely sure that she agreed with the group, Serenity didn’t want to agree with the guy who had caused her to lose sleep the night before.
“Okay. I'm in.” She smiled as she looked around, avoiding making eye contact with Ryland.
“Awesome!” Silas said from her left side.
“Fantastic!” Cora said on her right side.
The group began to chatter and talk amongst themselves now that the main decision had been made.
“So which one of Alaric’s classes are you in?” Silas lost no time trying to get all of Serenity’s attention to himself.
“Oh, just–”
“Give it a rest, Silas. Seriously, she’s not here to talk about school. Besides, it’s not healthy to get her to talk about that guy.”
Serenity turned her head a few times trying to look between them. “You guys really don’t talk very highly of him.”
“Oh, don’t get me wrong,” Silas held his hands up. “When you need help, there is no one more reliable than Alaric. He’s a fantastic guy, but, well…” his voice trailed off.
“He tends to find himself in trouble a lot.” Ryland’s words were casual, but really struck a chord.
Serenity frowned. “How so? Somehow I can’t imagine him being a police suspect.”
“Not that kind of trouble,” Ryland said, giving her a smile.
“Yeah. It’s best that you forget about him. You can do that with us,” Cora beamed at her.
Serenity scratched her face, “If I’m being honest, he’s the reason I moved here.”
“Oh, dear God! Why?” Silas looked like he was in agony. “I can’t believe you are so far gone.”
Ryland shrugged his shoulders, the smile never leaving his lips. “She’s hardly the first woman to follow the fearless leader.”
Silas got suddenly quiet. Serenity turned to look at him, but Cora caught her attention first. “As much as I hate to say it, I think that I’ll have to give you to Silas so you forget that guy. Honestly, he’s never taken a woman seriously. He disappears for weeks at a time, and no one could say why.”
Serenity’s eyes widened, “Well, he’s still involved in his business. That doesn’t come as too much of a surprise.”
Ryland sat up and leaned forward, “No, he isn’t. He resigned from the board almost seven months ago. His only day job is being a professor.”
“How did you know about his company?” Cora was watching Serenity now, and it made her uncomfortable.
“Um, we have been in contact for almost a year. Getting to be his student is the whole reason I chose Deep River over a few other places.”
“Is he really that renowned that he would attract that kind of attention?” Cora looked baffled.
Silas waved away her question, “Forget about that. He actually talked to someone on the other side of the country about school? Why? That’s doesn’t make any sense.”
Serenity was having a difficult time following the conversation. It was beginning to dawn on her that the people of the town really didn’t have any idea just who Professor Cedrus was. She had to wonder if he really knew these people at all.
“Yes, he knows us very well,” Ryland was looking at her, and she felt a shiver at his words. “He’s just got more than one focus, and he tends to keep his lives separated into different compartments.”
“Well, that certainly makes me want to question him the next time I see him,” Cora said, a slight pout on her mouth.
Silas tapped Serenity on the shoulder. “So, why you?”
She blinked at him a couple of times. “I’m sorry, I don’t understand what you are asking.”
“Drop it, Silas,” Ryland said, sitting back. “She’ll talk when she wants to. If you try to pressure her into confiding, you aren’t going to get the results you want.”
On the one hand, Serenity wanted to contradict him and tell the others whatever it was they were trying to ask in a very roundabout way. On the other hand, it meant talking about her former school, and that would mean a whole other round of explanations and things she didn't want to talk about. It might also annoy her professor because her friends had already showed her how normal people reacted to her decision. It would give them too much information on who Professor Cedrus was after he had spent so much time trying to keep that out of his relationship with the group.
With a sigh, she managed, “I don’t think it was anything special about me. I just had questions for him. I was planning on moving over this way, and it was his advice and willingness to help that made me decide to come here.”
“That’s it?” Silas sounded relieved. “Doesn’t sound like you are love-struck then.”
“I’m still interested in learning more about Alaric. Obviously there’s more to him than we realized.”
“Oh, tell me you aren’t still hoping to change his mind about you,” Ryland said in a tone that Serenity recognized from her discussions with him. He was goading Cora.
“Of course not!” She was blushing a little. “I got over him ages ago. You know that. I just wish that he was more open like you.”
Ryland shrugged.
“What about me?” Silas seemed to take a bit of offense that Cora was ignoring him.
“If Ryland is an open book, you are an open picture book. There’s no depth or interest because it takes no time at all to get to know you.”
“Hey!” He was frowning.
Serenity put her hand over his. She gave him a smile, “I think your approach to living is very refreshing. If you are a picture book, that means that you can be read and enjoyed more often.”
“Exactly!” He beamed at Cora as if to say that he had won the debate.
“You’ve lived here your whole life, just like me. That’s boring. Ryland has been all over the place and–”
“Oh ho!” Silas spoke up. “So your attention has turned to Ryland, has it?” His eyes gleamed.
“That isn’t what I was saying at all!” Cora’s cheeks were pinker than earlier.
Ryland stood up. “It sounds like the planning portion is over. If you guys are just going to argue and bicker, I have better things to do.”
“I’m sorry, Ryland,” Cora looked up at him. “Please don’t leave yet.”
“I have a long day tomorrow, so if there really isn’t anything else pressing, I should be heading out.”
“Alright.” Cora seemed to deflate, and Serenity couldn’t help but wonder if Silas had been right about Cora being interested in Ryland. “I know you have a long drive tomorrow, and I wouldn’t want to cut in on your sleep. See you next weekend.”
Ryland dropped some money on the table, even though all he had was water. He walked around the table before stopping. “Serenity, would you like me to walk you home?”
Shocked, Serenity turned to look up at the unexpected offer. Silas answered, “Don’t worry, I’ll make sure she gets home safely.”
Ryland smiled, “Thanks Silas, but I wasn’t asking you. You live in the opposite direction.”
Serenity was going to refuse, but hearing that it would be out of Silas’s way to get her home, she wondered for a moment if she should head out. Finally, she answered, “Alright. I need to do some studying anyway.”
Cora laughed, “You take school so seriously, don’t you? Be careful about that, or you may end up regretting missing out on other things.”
“Oh, I don’t think she needs to worry about that.” Ryland was smiling at Cora. “She’s got you guys now.”
“Hey, before you go,” Silas held out his hand, “let me add my number to your phone. If you get bored or want to hang out, all you have to do is text.”
Serenity smiled, unlocked her phone, and handed it to him. “Thanks, Silas. I will be taking you up on that soon.”
His smile was gorgeous as he handed her phone back. “I’m glad to hear it.”
“Bye, everyone. It was a pleasure to meet you.” There was a chorus of goodbyes as Serenity moved next to Ryland. He merely nodded at them before heading to the door.